Howard County police have charged a local teen with setting fire to equipment at the Huntington Park playground in the 9600 block of Clocktower Lane in Columbia in the evening on May 26.
David Joe McKinney, 18, of Jessup, was charged with two counts of malicious burning, police said. The damage to the playground is estimated at $40,000.
Jackie Kotei, spokeswoman for the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services, said firefighters were called to the playground on Clocktower Lane around 5:25 p.m.
"We got a call [from a citizen] who said they saw smoke coming from an apartment building," Kotei said. "We dispatched a crew there and they saw it was coming from a playground on Clocktower Lane. The caller said they saw two young kids trying to put it out with an extinguisher."
Kotei said firefighters extinguished the blaze in about 15 minutes. Police said they then called the department's arson investigators and the fire marshal's office, who revealed the fire had been intentionally set.
During the investigation, police said, a detective at the scene saw a witness nearby with what appeared to be a black, charred substance on his fingers. He approached the man, later identified as McKinney, and asked if he had any information about the fire. After McKinney provided what police described as conflicting and suspicious information, detectives investigated further and later charged him with the crime.
This marks the second playground arson investigation in two weeks in Howard County.
Around 2 a.m. May 16, firefighters and paramedics were called to the Hammond Park playground for a reported fire in the 10000 block of Glen Hannah Drive in North Laurel, where playground equipment and rubber matting beneath a slide were damaged.
Police are reviewing other arson cases to determine if there are any possible links.